Phases Of Matter

A fifth of the way into the 21st Century, average life expectancy in Turkey is 78 (in the UK it’s 81). That seems like a long time to the very young; only in growing old do people begin to realise how short it is; and yet when we consider all time time that lies to either side of it, all that has happened before and all that will happen afterwards, the effect is dizzying. Deniz Tortum’s poetic ode to the hospital where he was born opens with a shot of medical personnel crowded around a supine body. The camera nudges through them, daring us to catch glimpses of what’s going on, then suddenly confronts it in totality. This is a human body, but not what we expected. Semi-mummified, it must be many years, perhaps many centuries old. As doctors pry it apart and try to tease out its secrets, we are given a lurching perspective on deep time.

All of Tortum’s existence has been linked to this place, the Cerrahpaşa Hospital in Istanbul. his father has worked there for decades. He himself is accepted, along with his camera, as if he were a familiar piece of equipment with no personality or intent, just drifting through. Several cats do likewise, occasionally nuzzling members of staff, dozing on the chairs in reception during their breaks. This is a hospital seen from an insider’s perspective, the focus on back corridors and break rooms where staff members cluster round small tables, smoking heavily. We pick up snatches of conversation almost incidentally, though obviously there is an editing process at work. Patients are seen only at a distance, round corners or through screens, and it’s rare that we see a face or a whole body. They are relevant in this context as a collection of parts waiting to be fixed, not as people.

This doesn’t mean that there’s a lack of kindness on display. The whole film pivots around a tender-hearted speech by the hospital imam, in which he explains his philosophy on birth, life and death. It’s so deeply felt that anyone hearing it is likely to be moved, no matter their own beliefs on the matter. These are the words he uses with the parents of stillborn babies. We see row upon row of bottled foetuses: soaking in formaldehyde, the manifold variations of the human form. They are presumable subjects of study – this is a teaching hospital – but they also seem to constitute a silent audience, watching those who made it, wondering at the little differences which make it possible to experience independent life.

In another room, in a parallel scene, sit dolls used to teach artificial respiration and similar skills. Slumped on the floor or against the walls, they take on a new quality in their multitude, especially in light of the world’s recent experience of pandemic disease. There is little focus here on sickness, however. Where patients’ reasons for being there are discussed at all, they are framed more like accidents of mechanical failures. The imam may speak about the soul, but the body, as presented here, is functional, pragmatic, and no less amazing for that.

Like its patients, Cerrahpaşa Hospital has a limited span of life. It is nearing the end of that now, threatened with closure. It seems unlikely to pull through. We see the signs of age, from sagging window frames to cracks in the walls. Everything has seen better days. Its patients will go on to benefit from a younger replacement in much better condition – but old as it is, it has stories to tell, and without speaking on its behalf, Tortum makes us wonder at the things it has seen. So lose not heart nor despair: in passing from the world, it finds a kind of immortality on film.